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Frig season appeals to more Adirondack climbers
The popularity of ice climbing in northern New York has skyrocketted, leaving rock climbers in the dust.
By MICHAEL VIRTANENThe Associated Press
KEENE VALLEY, New York, Feb. 24 -- Ice climbing is the new cool.
Over the past decade, climbers have established dozens of new ice routes in the Adirondacks, one indication of a shift away from rocks in the nearly century-old technical sport in northern New York.
"Ice climbing growth is frenzied," said author and Adirondack guide Don Mellor. "Rock climbing here is stagnant, or declining. Lots of reasons for this."
The ice here in northern New York usually forms in December and lasts into March. New tools, like exotically curved ice axes, have made winter ascents easier. More climbers are mounting mixed routes, sticking sharp ice tools into thinner ice as well as rock cracks, Adirondack guides say.
The relative lack of opportunities elsewhere is another explanation Mellor gives, though New Hampshire and Vermont have their own popular ice climbs. His new book, scheduled for publication this year, will list some 360 Adirondack ice routes -- double the number in his 1995 all-season guidebook. No doubt there are others still undocumented, he said.
"Rock climbing peaked in the late '80s or early '90s," said Ed Palen, whose guide service in Keene logged about 1,000 client days last year, 40 percent on ice. "Now ice climbing has really created the growth."
The flat summer season may be partly explained by the many people the professionals have taught to climb rock and who now take novice friends out themselves instead of hiring guides, Ian Osteyee said. The Keene-based guide also cited the Adirondack emphasis against drilling hardware into rock faces, contrary to the trend toward "sport climbing" with bolts placed wherever climbers need them.
The rock season in northern New York lasts longer, generally starting with the April thaw and ending with snow flurries around late October. There were some 900 rock routes in Mellor's 1995 guidebook published by the Adirondack Mountain Club.
An upcoming book will probably contain a few hundred more, Palen said. "Up here, the new route, rock climbing thing is about 90 percent done," he said. "For every 100 cliffs in the Adirondacks, there's maybe one on the average that lends itself to rock climbing."
People have hiked and scrambled up Adirondack mountains -- all but one under a mile high _ for centuries. John Case in 1916 was among the first technical climbers to use ropes and modern techniques to scale difficult cliffs. The former president of the American Alpine Club and summer resident of Keene Valley never pounded metal pitons into rock cracks to secure climbing ropes, Mellor and Osteyee said.
Steel hardware would be used on later ascents in the six-million-acre Adirondack Park, though the ongoing emphasis is on leaving things "forever wild."
Regulations make it generally illegal to place new fixed anchors -- no longer pitons, but small expansion bolts drilled in rock faces -- while climbers still use those previously set. Mellor estimates they exist on 10 percent of the routes he listed.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation addresses climber hardware through individual unit management plans, DEC spokesman Michael Fraser said.
The Dix and Giant mountain wilderness area plans, affecting popular climbing routes in the eastern Adirondacks, in 2004 imposed temporary moratoriums on new or replacement bolts or pitons and limit climbing groups to 10. The DEC also prohibits climbing on routes that disturb peregrine falcon nests.
"We've kept this area very pure. There's thousands of routes we could have put up with bolts. The climbing community decided not to do that," Palen said.
Technology over the past few decades has made gear and clothing lighter and stronger, and Adirondack ice made the cover of January's national Climbing magazine, but it remains a low-key, rural affair. At the ninth Adirondack International Mountainfest, more than 200 enthusiasts, guides and others watched renowned mountaineer Steve House's slide show from the bleachers in Keene Central School on a frigid January night.
"It has a 1950s feel," Palen said. "It's an old gym with kids running around."
Story Produced by: Brian Clay
